Saturday, December 24, 2005

I don't think the decline of the family restaurant generates as much
sympathy as the decline of the family farm. If it did, super-sized price
supports and subsidies for burgers and fries would be right around the corner:

Unhappy days for America’s family restaurants, by Paul Sullivan, Financial Times:
Casual restaurants have supplanted family restaurants in terms of revenue for
the first time since the US census started measuring this in the 1970s. The
shift means the burger, fries and milkshake ideal evoked by the sitcom Happy
Days is losing its hold on the American appetite. The restaurant data, which the
2002 census made available only this week, showed places that serve meals
costing $10-$20 now make up 45 per cent of all dining dollars, up from 33.2 per
cent in the last census in 1997. Those that serve meals costing less than $10
per person have fallen to 36.8 per cent from 49.6 per cent.

“I didn’t think that within a five-year timeframe we’d see family restaurants
eclipsed by casual restaurants,” said Malcolm Knapp, a restaurant economist in
New York who analysed the data and has been working with the Census Bureau since
1972. “Casual is now the dominant group in terms of sales ... and it’s not going
back.”

Chains such as Ruby Tuesday, Olive Garden and Outback Steakhouse now win more
dining dollars than such staples of 1950s and 60s America as Denny’s, Big Boy
and the International House of Pancakes. ... “America keeps raising the standard
of what normal living is. You can see that perfectly in the restaurants,” said
Mr Knapp. People are “taking their kids to casual and themselves to casual
plus”. ... All is not lost, though, for the family restaurant. While fewer
people may eat dinner there, they still draw crowds for their good, cheap
breakfasts.

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The Decline of the Family Restaurant

I don't think the decline of the family restaurant generates as much
sympathy as the decline of the family farm. If it did, super-sized price
supports and subsidies for burgers and fries would be right around the corner:

Unhappy days for America’s family restaurants, by Paul Sullivan, Financial Times:
Casual restaurants have supplanted family restaurants in terms of revenue for
the first time since the US census started measuring this in the 1970s. The
shift means the burger, fries and milkshake ideal evoked by the sitcom Happy
Days is losing its hold on the American appetite. The restaurant data, which the
2002 census made available only this week, showed places that serve meals
costing $10-$20 now make up 45 per cent of all dining dollars, up from 33.2 per
cent in the last census in 1997. Those that serve meals costing less than $10
per person have fallen to 36.8 per cent from 49.6 per cent.

“I didn’t think that within a five-year timeframe we’d see family restaurants
eclipsed by casual restaurants,” said Malcolm Knapp, a restaurant economist in
New York who analysed the data and has been working with the Census Bureau since
1972. “Casual is now the dominant group in terms of sales ... and it’s not going
back.”

Chains such as Ruby Tuesday, Olive Garden and Outback Steakhouse now win more
dining dollars than such staples of 1950s and 60s America as Denny’s, Big Boy
and the International House of Pancakes. ... “America keeps raising the standard
of what normal living is. You can see that perfectly in the restaurants,” said
Mr Knapp. People are “taking their kids to casual and themselves to casual
plus”. ... All is not lost, though, for the family restaurant. While fewer
people may eat dinner there, they still draw crowds for their good, cheap
breakfasts.